The consulting firm Boston Consulting Group conducted a study that showed that European telecoms are not ready for such fast and large investments at the moment because they are hindered by strict EU rules and delayed 5G spectrum auctions necessary for 5G infrastructure development. Given the speed of investment in China, which already has the world’s largest 5G network, and US efforts to overtake China, too much regulation and slow administration could cause it to lose the race, leading to a significant lag in the global economic competition.

The consultants, therefore, recommend relaxing the rules of the game to allow telecommunications companies to collaborate and invest in new technologies. Such an approach would, in fact, reduce costs for telecoms, and can be realized through a new ownership model that includes voluntary infrastructure sharing. This approach would enable faster implementation of 5G technology, but also the exchange of acquired knowledge, stronger development of new solutions, and, ultimately, a more limited impact on the environment.

In the EU, it is necessary to invest another 150 billion euros to build a 5G network, but the same amount of money is needed to complete the upgrade of fixed infrastructure to gigabit speeds.
To encourage telecoms to invest so much money, consultants are proposing a regulation that would allow operators to monetize data traffic on their networks to catch up with rivals such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.